Development of Team Cohesion and Sustained Collaboration Skills with the Sport Education Model

Physical education is crucial to the development of physical and social abilities. Team cohesion, nurtured in physical education, influences team performance and provides skills that students may translate into future social arenas. However, whether teaching strategy in physical education affects the development of team cohesion remains uncertain. The sport education model (SEM) enhances sport skills, rule knowledge, sport etiquette, and affective development through games and competition. The SEM has replaced many conventional physical education curricula in advanced countries. Therefore, this quasi-experimental pretest–post-test study investigated the effects of the SEM on team cohesion. Undergraduate volunteers from a Taiwanese university were divided into experimental and control groups for a 10-week basketball course taught using the SEM or direct instruction, respectively. Pretest and post-test questionnaires utilized a team cohesion scale, with subscales measuring teamwork, team adaptation, and interpersonal interaction. Experimental group (Mpre = 3.35 ± 0.42, Mpost = 3.98 ± 0.50) scores for overall team cohesion and the three subscales were significantly improved after the course; no significant improvement was noticed in the control group (Mpre = 3.23 ± 0.58, Mpost = 3.57 ± 0.57). Furthermore, all post-test scores for the experimental group (M = 3.98 ± 0.50) were higher than those for the control group (M = 3.57 ± 0.57). Therefore, the SEM is a feasible model for improving team cohesion and thus related social skills students may sustain into adulthood.